I am Founder and Principal at Bersin by Deloitte, leading provider of research-based membership programs in human resources (HR), talent and learning. Hundreds of the Global 2000 and Fortune 1000 use our proven people strategies to drive exceptional business results.

I've spent much of my career in technology, sales, marketing, and business leadership and I actively write about major global trends in leadership, management, HR and talent management technologies. I live in the San Francisco area, close enough to Silicon Valley to keep up with new technology and its impact on the business of talent.

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Great article!!! The NEXT Steps Youth Entrepreneur Program has learned that the findings of this research are EXTREMELY true. Over the past five years from working with Millennials, we have learned to use our 3.5 acre urban farm and garden site (Atwood Community Gardens & Urban Farm Park, Atlanta, GA) as a non-traditional outdoor business class to teach them leadership, project management, new business development, and people/resource management skills. By first teaching this generation of kids garden, farm and market management skills, we then followup by showing them how easily these skills transfer into entrepreneurial, new business development, special event management, and project management skills in any industry. We just have to make sure business organizations continue to fund training programs and non-profits like mine to ensure we can continue cranking out kids that have the critical thinking skills businesses will be looking to hire in the next few years. Dana Jewel Harris, Executive Director, The NEXT Steps Youth Entrepreneur Program www.nextstepsyep.org

This is a great article, and I’m glad it was brought up that Millennials thrive on recognition. It seems to me that it comes down to feeling valued in an organization and believed in. As Josh said, Gen Y’ers tend to have grown up being told that they are special and unique (for better or for worse), and those employees who don’t feel valued – especially the top talent (the most special and unique of them all!) will simply leave if they don’t feel that their contributions are being adequately recognized. This can come in the form of a “Thank You” or a leadership opportunity or the chance to take on special projects and learn more. It’s so important that companies adapt to this new way of investing in their top talent. After all, job security is not a top priority to these folks, and it’s more and more possible that they will search for greener pastures!

Josh, as always a great summary of interesting research. One thing jumped out at me: Millenials expect flattened hierarchies but also demand career growth. For earlier generations this would be a contradiction, but not for Millenials. For them, career growth means more challenging positions, travel and crucially, a sense of personal development. Keeping your best Millenials on board in the future is not about handing them the key to executive washroom, but maintaining an exciting pace of personal growth. That’s going to mean a new approach to management. Instead of simply using a person’s position in the hierarchy to guess what they might do next, management will have to engage and communicate in new and interesting ways, for example, by providing “employee business intelligence” tools to deliver job satisfaction and help productivity. Business intelligence will help employees understand the outcomes they can impact for both themselves, and their firm. Making the most of this approach, in my view, will optimize Millennial talent in an organic and bottom up fashion.

I think the Millennials are in for a big shock. The business world will not just roll over for them. Many of the things they want don’t really exist such as career growth (not their definition), fairness and performance based employment. The existing powers in the corporate world don’t want to give up power. Why has it taken so long to get any movement in diversity? The system doesn’t want to change. This is their first major challenge. The second is that as they experience more of the corporate world, they will change. Career growth is very challenging today and the Millenials will need their optimism. I applaud any company that strives to be continuous in their delivery of praise, recognition and reward. In reality, you just don’t see much of it. I think the Millennials will impact the world just like the other generations before them. Change will be so slow it’s hardly noticeable. I have young kids who’ll be in college in a few years. I try to be optimistic and realistic at the same time. Kids need to educated on what the world is really like, not given some overly optimistic disney theme park view of the world.

We decided to have a little fun with the thought of Millennials in the workplace. What if they wrote the lyrics to the Dolly Parton classic, 9 to 5? We think it’d go something like this http://youtu.be/eGqbn2bx7o4

Very interesting article. I am a baby boomer and had the following reflections on my own leadership journey – I wanted leadership my own way; I was probably not ready but wanted it; I yearned for openness, transparency and inclusiveness; I wanted career growth sometimes impatiently; I looked for fairness, performance based promotions rather than tenure; I looked for autonomy to act and hates any boss who looked over my shoulders; I thrived on change and making things better. So why are we talking about millennials like they are so different? I believe we all value the same things – being treated fairly, based on our contribution, not on any generalisation. The difference I see is that baby boomers grew up with parents who came out of the depression and wars and their priorities were to put food on the table and provide security. Therefore we were told loyalty pays off, wait our turn, etc – did we like it, no way. Did we put up with it? Sometimes more than we should or needed to. What I most admire about the millennials is that they want the same things AND they are impatient to get what they want. They will not sit and wait. They go out and get it. If they can’t get what they want/need in one place, they are prepared to move on and they mostly find what they want. They are less fixated on blindly amassing the financial means. They may have an easier start in life with security in hand and tummies full. But bottom line is we all want the same things irrespective of generations. The millennials are the most prepared to demand it. Not like the silent baby boomer generation.